Tightening Our Belts

The recession the world is in now has changed a lot of things. The Gilded Age seems to be over and I do not think it is ever coming back. No one in my generation or younger can claim to be a child of the Great Depression but my fathers generation lays claim to that area and everything that went along with it. Even in the 1950's Dad had a garden in the back yard thinking he could feed his family on the cheap but I can't ever remember eating anything that came out of that garden. Maybe First Lady Michelle Obama's tilling of a garden on the White House lawn last week brought back my garden memories. I don't know what else could have caused a garden flash back because I've never had a garden of my own and I don't intend to start tilling one anytime soon. I'll be buying my produce at HEB and Walmart despite a Recession or Depression!
Mom was also a child of the Depression. Maybe every time she cracked a few eggs she stuck her fingers into the shells to get every last bit of the eggs. I am sure she did her part just as Dad did to feed us all in trying financial times but I am not going to start conserving eggs.
No matter what generation you were born into, everybody has a few ways to save a penny in tough financial times. It may be driving past a paid parking spot until you come upon a free parking spot or making your coffee at home before you leave each morning instead of stopping at Starbucks along the way. Maybe you eat out less or when the waiter ask you what you would like to drink you say "tap water". Maybe you forgo the movies at the Theater and instead attend the free movies at the local library.
It really does not matter how you save that penny or if you even save a penny because you don't need to be rich to be happy. Too many people believe rich is a stage of life just as old age and adolescence are. The people with that attitude are the ones having a tough time in this recession, it's not the garden tillers and egg shell connoisseur who are praying for pennies from heaven.
If the truth be known I was probably a garden tiller and a egg shell connoisseur in a former life. At least people who know me well seem to think so because they think I am cheap. Well maybe I am but at least when I look in the mirror I like what I see. That Rice and Beans man stairs back at me every morning and tells me " you don't need a new belt, you'll do just fine no matter what state the world is in".